City erects fence at Gilman to deal with homeless campers

Workers clear out a homeless encampment near the Gilman interchange of Interstate 80 to put up a fence. Photo: David Yee

The city of Berkeley is working Thursday to install a new fence on Gilman Street on the southeast side of the Interstate 80 freeway as part of ongoing efforts to curtail camping by homeless in the area.

Jim Hynes, from the Berkeley city manager’s office, brought “No Trespassing” signs down to the site in the late morning to hand out to workers who were installing the fence. Hynes said he was also looking into what it might cost to put more fencing on the north side of the street east of the freeway.

Three people received citations Thursday from Berkeley Police officers for obstructing the sidewalk, but no arrests were made. Campers in the area said their property — much of which had both material and sentimental value — was taken and put into a dumpster as part of the enforcement effort.

Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol were also on scene for the cleanup.

Hynes said campers in the area were given notice two days in a row that authorities would be on scene Thursday. He pointed out dozens of used syringes left in the area in the wake of the cleanup, as well as juice bottles full of urine.

He said passing drivers had been supportive of the effort, honking and even pulling over to thank the city for the cleanup. There was also frustration, Hynes said, about why the work had taken so long.

Hynes said there are other plans in the works to help clean up the area. Caltrans is planning to build a taller, stronger fence below the freeway, and install more signs about laws related to public space. Hynes said the California Highway Patrol plans to start writing citations for code violations after that fence goes up. That’s slated to take place in late July.

Hynes said homeless outreach and mental health workers had often been rebuffed by homeless individuals in the area. He described the campers as “openly antagonistic to anything having to do with help.”

A homeless man who said he was named “Jupiter Of The Universe” hurriedly packs up his things as workers clear out a homeless encampment near the Gilman interchange of I-80 to put up a fence. Photo: David YeeWorkers install a fence at the site of a homeless encampment near the Gilman interchange of I-80. Photo: David YeeJim Hynes, from the city manager’s office, talks on the phone near the site of a homeless encampment as a worker puts in a fence. Photo: David Yee

He said there had been about 10 campers in the area where the fence was going in, along with another group across the street on the north side. (The campers beneath the freeway are on Caltrans jurisdiction.)

Hynes said businesses in the area had been pleading with the city to address the problem of camping and debris. One ongoing issue, he said, was that some of the campers regularly toss spent syringes over the fences onto the properties of those businesses.

He described the campers as respectful Thursday and said the operation went smoothly.

CHP Officer Sean Deise said the agency had simply been on the scene to keep the peace.

“We’re not here to harass anybody,” he said. He said Caltrans workers had previously been “assaulted with weapons,” which had brought officers to the scene during subsequent clean-up operations. Some of those officers Thursday were armed with less-lethal weapons.

Deise said he fully expected campers to return beneath the freeway as soon as officers and Caltrans packed up to move on to the next location.

“They’re going to be back,” he said. “We’re just here to clean up the debris and the garbage that accumulates.”

He continued: “We give them information for services. A lot of them don’t want it. There’s only so much we can do.”

Some campers were already returning beneath the freeway in the early afternoon. Photo: Emilie RagusoGarbage and bottles of what appeared to be urine were still on the ground after the cleanup beneath the freeway. Photo: Emilie Raguso

As of about 12:30 p.m., the area below the freeway was mostly clear of tents and people. But Jacob, one of the campers, had already moved back in beneath I-80 as city workers installed the fence around the corner. The 33-year-old gestured to garbage and waste on the ground nearby and said the clean-up efforts by Caltrans had not been very thorough.

“They want to move us just to take our stuff,” he said.

He knew the cleanup was planned, he added, because notice had been given. Caltrans generally comes twice a month on Thursdays, the agency told Berkeleyside in June.

Jacob said one of the campers had been up at 5:30 a.m. to wake up all the others beneath the freeway to make sure they had time to clear out before Caltrans came in.

Jacob recalled how one of the Caltrans workers had “gloated” about plans for a fence, and told those on site they couldn’t remain in the area because it is private property.

Thomas Barnett, a 55-year-old homeless man who had been camping in the area where the new city fence is being installed, cried as he described what had taken place that morning. He said he lost about $5,000 worth of property, including about 70 bikes and bike frames as well as family mementos.

He said he had only learned about the cleanup Wednesday night, and had been woken Thursday by an officer tearing up his tarp and telling him to clear out.

“I said, ‘I need some help,'” Barnett said. “I couldn’t find anyone.”

One officer ultimately helped him bring over a three-wheeled bike, and another friend saved his generator, but most of Barnett’s possessions ended up going into a dump truck.

“Bulldozers munched it up,” he said. “It was amazing. The jaws munched everything down into a tight bundle.”

He said he had already known he had to find different accommodations and been working to find a place to move his stuff. He previously told Berkeleyside he was hoping to find some kind of workshop or other storage option because of the amount of his property and size of his bike repair operation.

“I just didn’t make it in time,” he said, tears running onto his cheeks. “I thought the city would give us time to get our property.”

He said he wasn’t sure where he would live now that the parcel he had been on was being fenced off.

“There’s still nowhere to go now that I’ve downsized,” Barnett said, looking around at what was left of his property. “Everybody down here feels the same way: Where are we supposed to go?”

Thomas Barnett stands next to a blue trunk (in the distance) and surveys his remaining property on Thursday. He said he wasn’t sure where he would go next. Photo: Emilie RagusoCampers moved over to the area north of the sports field during the clean-up operation. Photo: Emilie Raguso

Another camper, who identified himself as “Jupiter Of The Universe,” said he had struggled to pack all of his possessions onto a custom rig flatbed cart and get it out of the way of the clean-up crews. But, when he left it unattended on a median for several minutes, workers quickly loaded it into a trash compactor along with many of his possessions.

Items he lost included laptop computers and other electronics, as well as a “very nice backpack.”

“It might have seemed like knick-knacks and useless trash, but to me they’re more than that,” said the 28-year-old who grew up in Berkeley. (He said his father is well-known on Telegraph Avenue as the “patch man” who sets up outside Rasputin record shop.)

He described the area where he had set up his stuff before the cleanup as a political and artistic demonstration, which he said he planned to continue. He and others acknowledged that the area can get messy but said the city should give them space to camp and allow them to police themselves.

“Give us three weeks to see what can’t be done differently than how it’s been,” he said. He said he’d like to see an artistic approach to the community under the freeway that could include artists and performers so it would be a “space for expression.”

Another homeless man, who said he goes by the name “Tennessee,” had been displaced by the cleanup and had set up temporarily near the Tom Bates Regional Sports Complex. Thursday’s cleanup hadn’t seemed any different to him than previous efforts, he said.

A posted notice told campers to vacate the area beneath the freeway. Photo: Emilie Raguso

He said he planned to go back under the freeway after the work crews had moved on. Tennessee said he always carries out his trash to keep the area clean but acknowledged that this wasn’t true for all the campers. Recently, he said, there had been a problem with mice due to food kept in and around the tents. He said he’d prefer to live inside an apartment but, as a 51-year-old, couldn’t live somewhere where there were rules about when he could come and go.

“This isn’t a place of choice,” he said, of Gilman. “It’s a last option.”

The freeway provides important shelter, especially during the rainy season, he said. He said it seemed like the city is trying to push out the homeless with its repeat operations on Gilman.

“I think they don’t want us in this town,” he said. “A lot of these people are from here and they’re not going anywhere.”

Berkeleyside on Twitter

Get the headlines in your inbox

Most Commented

Funny. it takes a lot of work to live out at that landfill, Most of you softbellies wouldn’t last a week.

iamdink

work for housing? try for work heroin.

iamdink

if it was worth $5k then why not sell it and move in to a cozy rent controlled studio?

lspanker

sigh, this could go in circles eternally. Tell me again why YOU deserve this place more than the homeless.

I don’t live in Berkeley at present – I live where I can afford it.

Anybody But Jesse

The facility was ridiculously over built. Let’s see Albany build their own. They should be paying a surcharge to reflect the costs avoided.

testit

In my plan, I would offer an option better than going to the park, his own, desirable place to live.

Your plan is for him to demonstrate he meets your standard of making an effort before doing anything for him, thus he ends up in the park.

Among those who are not mentally ill, vanishingly few would choose to live under the Gilman freeway overpass instead of a decent apartment. I say, help the mentally ill separately, everyone else gets a decent place to live and a path to keep living there. How many people have to be homeless before we recognize the flaws in the existing safety net (which for most does not really exist)?

Try this. Leave your wallet, money, phone and car, etc. at home. Walk down Shattuck. Don’t contact any of your friends, family, colleagues, or anyone else you know. Don’t tell anyone you’re doing an experiment. Try to get yourself a meal and a place to sleep tonight, and then the next day, and the next. Three days. Don’t show anyone your resume, LinkedIn, or other social media. If the police talk to you, use an assumed name and don’t tell them you’re doing an experiment. Good luck.

Gusted

Pee on it and find out

Pietro Gambadilegno

I knew someone who died lying in a Berkeley park. It was easy for him to leave the hospital and to move into the park and lie there all day, because no one moved him along. If it had been harder to live in the park, he might have stayed in the hospital.

He was crazy and thought radio waves were tuned into his brain. He had plenty of opportunities to receive help, but he preferred living and dying on the street. With your plan, people like that will continue dying on the street.

testit

It’s already not easy and they are already not accepting the available services. Make it as hard as your conscience permits, unless you put them in jail (which is more expensive than most any other option) things will stay as they are, because no matter hard you make it, they have no where else to go.
The outreach has to change along with available services. I don’t deny that this is essentially an intractable problem and we have effectively given up, so far any way. It’s just sad and shameful that a community as wealthy as ours does not have a better solution (not so different than the attitude that lead to establishing and perpetuating Prop 13 to the detriment of our children).

Pietro Gambadilegno

“all of the homeless who do not accept your terms will still be camping out just as they have been.”

You miss my point, which is that we should 1) provide more services for the homeless and 2) make it harder for the homeless to camp out or sit on sidewalks.

# 2 will deal with those who won’t accept our terms, rather than perpetuating their homelessness by letting them live on the streets.

Your ideas, on the other hand, will leave all the people who won’t accept your terms camping out on the street, rather than doing something about them. As you say, people have a legal right to refuse help – but we don’t have to make it easier for them to refuse help.

Pietro Gambadilegno

We are planning to build transitional housing on the Berkeley Way parking lot. That is an attempt Berkeley is making to be a model.

testit

Probably a lot, if it attempted to help everyone that needs it. But we could decide to spend the money to help a limited number of people and attempt to make that program a model (one that learns from its mistakes and successes). Of course, Berkeley bears the costs of $146,000 meter maids, plus the cost of their vehicles, plus the cost of the maintenance personnel, plus the cost of a data collection system attached to those vehicles, etc. Berkeley spends millions on parking enforcement, the homeless issue seems a lot more important than parking enforcement and deserves more resources.

I view alcoholism and drug addiction as diseases, and that people should be treated for these ailments. And these are difficult to treat. But these people still should not have to be homeless

Ted Maxwell

Problem is in such housing you cannot keep 70 bicycles or run a chop shop….

testit

I understand what you wrote, it is not a reading comprehension issue, rather I simply disagree. Some people’s mental illness manifests itself in a way that causes rejection of some offers of help. My view is that we need to try much harder to get help to those who need it and that, for many such people, it is us that needs to take the first steps as many are not capable of doing so. Some of those people surely would benefit from being in an institution that attempts to help them, a big challenge when balancing the legal right of most people to refuse such services (but, again, we should try harder).

In any case, your plan is no plan at all, as all of the homeless who do not accept your terms will still be camping out just as they have been. They will continue to suffer and our society will continue to pay the price as well.

By the way, I know Jim Hynes and I know that he certainly would like to make a difference. But I still think we are far from doing the best we can to help the homeless, some of whom are in desperate need of a lot more than housing.

Pietro Gambadilegno

How much would your plan cost? Take into account the fact that, if Berkeley alone offers this, we will attract tens of thousands of homeless people from across the nation.

I would be happy to see a national program funded by the federal government to build facilities like these.

But I think it should have some restrictions. People should have to make some effort to change their lives for the better, such as detoxing from alcohol/drugs and getting training in job skills. People who are so seriously mentally ill that they cannot do these things should be in separate asylums.

If you provide these shelters with no restrictions, they will fill up with people who want to spend their lives as alcoholics or drug addicts.

The ideal combination is shelters that help people improve their lives plus less tolerance for people who want to sit on the sidewalk doing nothing. That is the way to break the bad habits (such as drug habits) that cause homelessness and misery.

Pietro Gambadilegno

You seem to have problems with reading comprehension. I wrote:

We should let them have a place to live if they are making some effort
to change their lives for the better. We should not let them have a
place to live if they want to spend their lives as addicts or to spend
their lives sitting on the sidewalk and doing nothing.

I don’t expect them to turn their lives around instantly. I do expect them to make “some effort” to get assistance. Read the article, and you will see that most people sitting there rejected attempts to help them:

Hynes said homeless outreach and mental health workers had often been
rebuffed by homeless individuals in the area. He described the
campers as “openly antagonistic to anything having to do with help.”

Studebaker Hawk

You think the bums have had a harder life than those Latino guys in the background who are actually working? I think hearing from them about what they think about this would be far more interesting and informative than quotes from self-entitled thieves and junkies who think the taxpayers of Berkeley owe them a free ride.

testit

Yes, offered with unacceptable conditions. I’m suggesting that we have a homeless shelter, that has constant on site staff to keep it safe, sanitary, and in good condition, and includes those basic facilities I mentioned, including a place to bathe, wash clothes, sleep, get and send email.

How do you imagine that someone goes from having a home to becoming homeless? Likely they stay with family and friends until there are none. If they have one, they probably sleep in their car, but that is probably difficult to do if it does not run, as the police will generally not permit it. Finally, they are sleeping on the street, where even personal hygiene becomes a challenge, as well as fear of predators, and the basic logistics of keeping even a few possessions becomes a constant challenge without a safe place to store things. There is no easy path to get housing again, and a job is extremely challenging to get when you and your clothes smell bad, and you don’t have regular internet and phone access. The fall typically continues with worsening mental health issues, even if there weren’t any to begin with, as being homeless is surely fraught with anxiety.

Having a safety net early in the process (and later too, to the extent needed) would make all the difference to so many people (same with those who need mental health services), especially those people who descend into homelessness who are taking care of children.

Sure, there are those who refuse help, some because the restrictions are too onerous for many (not the least of which is having to wait in long lines only to be sent away), others because of fear of the predators, and others because mental health issues impede good judgment.

Most commenters on this topic express anger and resentment of the homeless but offer no solution. I’m not confident that my solution will work for enough people, but at leasts it’s an actionable suggestion. Ad hoc harassment and disruption, along with repetition of complaints, just wastes money and resources and generates more of the same.

Jason T

Here are some of the ways in which I personally feel that Berkeley’s potential is diminished by the homeless population:
1) Certain areas of town are unsafe, especially at night (telegraph, gilman st, certain blocks of downtown, etc)
2) Increased cost to taxpayers for Ambassadors, cleanup, storage lockers, etc. also Police, as Alameda county has the highest % calls for service for mentally ill people in CA.
3) Risk of being attacked by psychotic drug addicts (yes, this has happened to me personally, as well as others)
4) Neighborhoods being disturbed by mentally ill folk screaming outside windows at 3am
5) Risk of turning a corner and seeing a man bend over and defecate in front of a bus stop downtown at 5pm (…yep)
6) Public parks being occupied, and unusable due to risk of hidden needles, etc. (civic center, people’s)

Pietro Gambadilegno

My point was that id DOES make sense to condemn people for sitting around and doing nothing except taking drugs.

Your solution is for those of us who do work to collectively support those of us who do not work, but you don’t have the sense to realize that many more people would join the ranks of those who do not work if we adopted your solution.

The real solution is to support people who are willing to make some effort to change their lives for the better – and not to support self-destructive anti-social behavior.

Pietro Gambadilegno

Anybody But Jesse shows that he doesn’t understand the difference between average cost and marginal cost. Berkeley can save money by providing these services for more than our marginal cost, even if it is less than our average cost.

Pietro Gambadilegno

You haven’t been paying attention. Lspanker currently lives in Reno, and he has lived in many places to find work.

As for the “right to exist in a certain place,” I would say that no one has the right to permanently live on the sidewalks or in the parks.

Anybody But Jesse

Look up the fee Albany pays. Divide by number of homes in Albany. Look up assessment for the same service in Berkeley. Voila!

I’m not going to do your homework for you. But maybe you can get the nonresident fee on the Albany swim center dropped for Berkeley residents.

Anybody But Jesse

Because you can’t get any laws passed. The vast majority of residents and voters do not agree with you.

Anybody But Jesse

Then you should stop posting on Internet chat rooms and get to work.

Anybody But Jesse

No one gets through life trauma free. For millennia people have pulled it to survive. It’s great that we are in a better place, but let’s not lower expectations that far.

lspanker

Don’t know about Dan but I didn’t even make $18,000.

So in all your life you have never been able to make $18K per year? Ever bother to learn any marketable skills?

Personally I find it suspect that some people’s “hard work and long
hours” is worth 20,000 a year and other people’s is worth 10 times that.

There’s your problem right there. You apparently have no clue that people can increase their earning power by increasing their productivity through education, experience, and learning new skills.

There is only so much time in the day – is your work 10 times as
valuable?

If I provide 10x the value to my employer, yes.

lspanker

ugh lazy is not the issue. how many homeless folks have you known?

I have personally known 12 over the years, and laziness (or aversion to work) would certainly explain about half of them. Almost all the other ones were either druggies or mental cases, in likelihood from previous drug use. There was only one I know who wound up on the streets who wasn’t lazy, a substance abuser, or mentally ill – a woman who I would call as “extremely judgment impaired”…

Lin Brand

Ah. Well, I guess I still have to disagree. The ramifications of allowing anyone to live on public land anywhere they want could be awful. How do we define what land can be taken, and by whom, and under what circumstances? Public land belongs to all of us, not just those who decide to squat on it. So, I do think land should be set aside for people who want to live “outside” while being homeless, but not on public land that can and should be available for use to all of us. I tried walking my dog at the Bulb one time – we were chased off by two nasty uncontrolled dogs belonging to one homeless guy. I was terrified and I was afraid they were going to kill my dog. Do they have the ethical right to take usage of that land away from me and other taxpaying citizens? It’s a big country, set some land aside that is not part of an overpopulated urban area.

toofarinsideacar

i’m all for workable solutions, just not for punishing people because they are struggling.

what in my statement was so far-fetched? we ARE squatting on indigenous land, aren’t we? And rent/ownership really is not the only way to possess land. Are these not facts?

toofarinsideacar

..same difference, my point is that I don’t think the CEO necessarily has “earned” that much more than so many other people involved – whether it be salaries, bonuses, investments. We clearly disagree though. I just don’t think people’s right to housing can be valued based on their income.

toofarinsideacar

I’m not saying they have a legal right, I’m saying they have a ethical right and that the law is not just.

toofarinsideacar

as others have pointed out: are you really more worried about a homeless encampment than about that absurd mess of an intersection when bringing kids through?

It might have been a health hazard to the ppl living there but I’ve yet to walk by a homeless encampment that was a health hazard to me, walking by. Homelessness is not contagious. . . .

toofarinsideacar

my point was that it doesn’t make sense to condemn people for squatting itself. yes, let’s solve problems, but squatting itself is not the problem or inherently “bad.”

the question is, how do we solve the problems? You say let them starve, I say support them to our best ability. You say that’s not your job, I say it’s our collective job and we should fund it collectively.

I still don’t see how it harms those of us who have what we need to pay taxes that support more and better services that people would actually want.

toofarinsideacar

ugh lazy is not the issue. how many homeless folks have you known? how many of them were trauma-free, neurotypical, able-bodied people who were just being lazy?

toofarinsideacar

Don’t know about Dan but I didn’t even make $18,000.

Personally I find it suspect that some people’s “hard work and long hours” is worth 20,000 a year and other people’s is worth 10 times that. There is only so much time in the day – is your work 10 times as valuable?

…if we are in the business of comparisons. (which I think is actually an important thing).

toofarinsideacar

third option: let’s work to make the help truly helpful.

we all encumber each other. that is the nature of our existence as social beings. we have needs and we have resources. such is life. we all rely on tax-funded services. some people use the library, some people use police services, some people use public healthcare, some people use roads, some people use sidewalks, some people use food stamps, some people use tax rebates for education or green appliances.

also, btw: it costs WAY more to deal with a person in jail than it would to fund social services adequately. So if cost is your concern, I encourage you to support non-punitive solutions.

toofarinsideacar

I’m not a troll – just here to help you realize that your experience and opinions are not shared by all. But good way of avoiding the question:

HOW does the presence of people struggling “ruin” your city and why are you so special as to have to not witness their existence?

Speaking for myself, I don’t feel like homeless people are ruining the city I grew up in (after age 10). Actually what bothers me is people who sneer at Berkeley’s lefty reputation and use it as an excuse to be inhumane and reactionary! But I’m not passing laws forcing you to leave or tearing down your houses.

JamesWestCA

Did they really throw everything in a trash compactor (including electronics) despite having a full service recycling center less than one block away?

toofarinsideacar

a loony, oh dear.
but do you disagree? I know it would be hard to measure but I really think we need to think about it: which is *really* more harmful? we with houses can hide our filth better but we actual tend to create more, I’d argue, than someone living by the side of the road. Not to idealize homelessness or say that toilets and storage facilities are a bad idea. Those are good ideas.

sigh, this could go in circles eternally. Tell me again why YOU deserve this place more than the homeless. I want to hear.

Again, this comes down to an existential matter. You are trying to value your life and your right to exist in a certain place over other people’s.

The fact that rent is high is not a fact of nature. It is the result of choices made by people in power, by government, developers, loan companies, landlords, etc etc. We actually DON’T have to accept this situation as the natural way of the world. We actually DO have a right to say: these policies and practices are unethical and put our wellbeing at risk. When those in power stop making unjust choices about *our* lives then I’ll stop resisting, then I’ll move away like you say.

So, no, you don’t win. If it’s you against the homeless, if you want to make it “us” or “them” but not both, then YOU leave.

Or, ideally: we could have a real conversation about who needs this space and negotiate how to coexist.

toofarinsideacar

I’d say: no. just my personal opinion…

Anyhow, I think being forced to pay taxes is different than forcing people to get “help.” Personally, I think it is right to redistribute my income and generally wrong to force people to get “help” if it can be avoided.

I’m not saying people should do whatever they want. i’ve been in situations where people didn’t want help but maybe didn’t know what was best for them. Maybe that psych hospital stay was better than nothing for my friend, even though they didn’t want to be there. I can accept that AND still maintain higher standards. I don’t want to force people to except bad care; I want to improve the quality of care. And I definitely think it’s messed up to fault people for not wanting “help” that isn’t really help. It’s not so simple.

Lin Brand

I suspect that the cost of animal services rendered to such a small population does not even come close to the $500k Albany spent to clear the Bulb of squatters, the majority of whom came from Berkeley. I’d be interested in a citation which shows that Berkeley is not receiving fair value for this service and that Berkeley citizens are charged more, since the fact that there is such a service does not prove it is at “pennies on the dollar”. And since you have provided only one example, specifying “deals” in the plural is misleading.

Pietro Gambadilegno

Look throughout history, and you will see that people squatted on land they didn’t own, and then worked hard to grow food for themselves on that land.

Look throughout history, and you will not see that people squatted on land they didn’t own and sat around doing nothing except taking drugs. If they had done that, they would have starved.

Pietro Gambadilegno

You dehumanize people by saying they have no responsibility to try to improve their own lives. Responsibility is part of being human.

Lin Brand

????????

Lin Brand

I’m not sure what service you are referring to – I’m an not aware of any service that comes to your home except Vector Control (which is a county service). Are you referring to dead animal pickup? In any case , seems like your issue should be with Berkeley City government which clearly thinks they are getting adequate compensation or they would not do it. Piedmont and Emeryville also have the same contract with Berkeley for these animal services.

Einar

Seemed like a good idea at the time, until I wound up working at several of those community mental health centers. The psychotics were falling through the cracks and the commitment law changes left them there. I wouldn’t mind paying more in taxes if it could go to more mental institutions with humane oversight and reformed commitment laws. Yes, it was I who was to blame, Reagan is a strawman.

Einar

Your link isn’t working, at least now. I read the discussion on Snopes and your quoted part is the only participant somewhat blaming Reagan, and even the quote cites the declining population of mental institutions. If the movement for deinstitutionalization was largely responsible for the loss of mental institutions why “thank” Reagan for it. I understand that it’s politically useful and that a lot of folks hate him, but this continual simplification and demonization doesn’t help build support for reforms to commitment and more mental health facilities.

lspanker

There is no law, legal in the US, that forces people to leave a city. So, people can complain all they want, but we either house homeless people or live in a city that has a large and growing homeless population.

Or we remove the incentives that encourage the vast majority of them to show up in the first place. Why is that not an option in your mind, unless you genuinely want homeless in Berkeley?

lspanker

You’re wrong.

lspanker

So why didn’t you criticize the mental health industry for its own blunder as well, unless you weren’t really interested in the root problems, only an excuse to blame on of the left’s favorite bogeymen for something…

Rick Morty

I like how Thomas Barnett complained about “his” 70 bikes and bike frames were confiscated. Dude you were running an illegal chop shop.

Janet Winter

I understand what you’re saying. Reagan wasn’t solely responsible for what happened, but he signed the laws that made it possible, and didn’t seem to care about the consequences to people like my dad. The movie version of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” was made in the inpatient facility where my father was, and to this day, I can’t sit through a showing of the film. I will search out the other two books you mention. Thank you.

lspanker

Where is there constitutional right to squat? Lemme guess, it’s the 237th Amendment in the new Homeless Bill of Rights, correct?

lspanker

I paid about $18K in combined state and federal taxes last year, dan. How much did you pay?

Government is going to get hugely disrupted by Silicon Valley in the same way that Uber disrupted taxi cabs. It’s the next frontier in many ways, especially as tech generates higher and higher profits – and it’s no secret that libertarianism is hugely popular in tech circles. The biggest shift behind that disruption will be privatization becoming the norm, rather than the exception.

Government currently provides ridiculously low return on investment (ROI) to the taxpayer while providing jobs to people who do not deserve. “Your margin is my opportunity” (Jeff Bezos) and the margins on which the government currently operates are humongous. It’s a ridiculously ripe for major disruptive innovation.

Berkeley’s city government is like the ultimate laughing stock in that inefficiency. It’s entertaining to watch.

Pearl Clutcher

Berkeley animal services (forget the exact name) is contracted by the city of Albany to come to your home, just as they do mine, in Berkeley. They pay pennies on the dollar of what Berkeley pays on a per capita basis for the same service.

Pearl Clutcher

if you have to ask that question, you have no hope of understanding the perspective of the majority of Berkeley residents. Or you are just trolling.

Pearl Clutcher

Breaking the law and encumbering others inevitably with your costly medical care is not an acceptable alternative. Either take the help (to stop breaking the law or encumbering others) or face the consequences (jail).

Intoleratus

How about a work for housing type deal? I see plenty of things around that need to be done.

dan

Would you? Injustice and denial of constitutional right has been moving steadily up the food chain of late.

dan

By laws of eminent domain (you know what George W. Bush used to build a baseball stadium..) and the rights of salvage. It really did belong to some of them.

dan

Who is “our’?

Lin Brand

The point is you have no legal right so it is not an eviction. No one guarantees that I can live wherever I want (I’d love to move to hawaii but i cannot afford the cost of living). No one guarantees that you can “squat” wherever you want. Yes, these folks should have some place they can pitch their tents or build their domiciles…but no one is guaranteeing they can do it in prime Bay Area locations. There is plenty of land where they could create communities in less populace areas.

Reagan’s role, besides signing the bill, was using it as a reason to cut his budget. What Reagan did was, at the same time the bill was passed, to reduce the budget for state mental hospitals. His budget bill “abolished 1700 hospital staff positions and closed several of the state-operated aftercare facilities. Reagan promised to eliminate even more hospitals if the patient population continued to decline.

So the mental health professionals at the time made the argument for outpatient care, and Reagan proposed to eliminate the spending for hospitals that would be empty if those same mental health professionals got their wish. Why do you blame Reagan and not the mental health folks?

lspanker

Can’t you just as easily move 100 miles away? Or simply move to walnut
creek? What have you done to earn the right to be here more than them?

Google the terms “rent” and “mortgage” and you might actually learn something.

lspanker

what is filth? to me (and to the earth, BTW!!), the gigantic, wasteful houses in the hills are even more filthy.

Maybe, but you appear to be a bit of a loony, which may explain a lot about your particular predicament.

Lin Brand

Lower rates than what? We procure some animal rescue services and we pay for them; if it was not financially advantageous to Berkeley, they would not do it. Both my neighbor and I volunteer at BACS; I adopted a dog from there and paid the same rate as any citizen, no “lower” rate. We don’t use the service that much; when I had a jumper dog, she would get out and I would go pick her up at the police station at City Hall (actually in a little cell, ha ha). The cops picked her up. What other services does Albany get from Berkeley?

dan

How about Homeless services and a conscience.

dan

Albany dropped all those people like a hot potato. You see “no evidence.” because you you were not there. How do I know? I case worked every person that was housed. $500,000 is nothing if it is spent by the agency that accepted it on their own salaries, health care, retirement funds..Pot calling the kettle it was my vehicle that was stuffed with belongings and me and my wife bring groceries to those people and bringing money to irate landlords stiffed by Albany and their Berkeley shill.

dan

Maybe you should move there to escape the humans you seem to hate so much.

dan

When you dehumanize others, you lower your own status in the Universe.

toofarinsideacar

well, if you ask me, (granted you didn’t haha), half the “jobs” that we do in this society basically equate to “doing nothing.” (BTW I have one of them)

for me this is an existential matter… what is it that tech workers or advertising people or finance people or some academics or even food service workers (hey, that’s me!) do that is so much more lovely and useful than sitting on the sidewalk?

What does it mean to “change their lives for the better”? Is work the only way to lead a “better” life? What about people who do horrible, violent things as part of their jobs? Do they still deserve housing more than someone sitting on the sidewalk chatting?

I know, I know, wild ideas but seriously – tell me what is so special about having any old job that means you and I deserve a house?

If you wanna say that ppl should contribute to society in order to be housed then okay… but if we were to follow that guideline, we’d end up with a whoooole lotta formerly-rich homeless people!

toofarinsideacar

I don’t know if they should be forced to pay raised taxes. But I DO think those of us with enough money should *willingly* pay taxes and generally give away as much money as we can once we have what we need. I’m guessing we will disagree here.

on a pragmatic level, I also don’t think forcing people to get unhelpful “help” is likely to work in the long run. (no more than jail or other forms of punishment work)

also not sure your analogy really makes sense. I’m not saying no one should ever have to do something they don’t want to do. I’m saying that it’s messed up to disguise punishment as “self-help.” taxes are not self-help so much as duty. imo.

toofarinsideacar

My guess is there are very few of us who have never loved or been family to someone with a mental health challenge or addiction or who are homeless.

And my point is that supporting people in need IS a big job. The idea that someone’s mom or partner or child can do it alone is absurd. The circle of community should not stop with the nuclear family. No one is fully independent, we all rely on each other (have you driven on a paved road recently, have you been to the library or used knowledge you learned in public school).

So, I’m with you – I want the city to step it up. Why? So that people get the support they need. NOT so that the rest of us can ignore it and look away.

“Mentally ill” people will be in the street, because it’s their street too. As it should be.

Who is it anyway that decides who should be exiled by society?

toofarinsideacar

okay, waiting for an explanation of how we are *not* all living on stolen land and thus all implicated in thievery. . . .

BTW – I’m not saying it’s cool to steal bikes. It sucks. But perspective is needed. People see theft very selectively. How are bike thieves the spawn of satan and yet the rest of us are totally fine as we go about relying on theft of labor and land in the form of: the (un)free market and settler colonialism and (for middle class white people like myself) tons of legs up in housing and education and jobs.

These are all features of the world we live in and yes theft sucks but in order to prevent it we have to take care of each other – and in a respectful, truly caring way.

toofarinsideacar

and a couple are viable candidates for the Very Selfish Party. cool cool. I’d rather be silly.

toofarinsideacar

and labor is valued justly across the board? I think not. It is theft when a CEO determines himself to be worthy of earning 2, 3, 4, or 100 times the amount of his workers. He is taking his workers’ labor just because he can and paying them very little in return.

likewise, when I bought this computer I’m typing on, I am relying on stolen labor by the people who made it. I am saying “I deserve a cheap computer more than you deserve fair pay and I’m going to get this cheapass chrome book for $150 because I can, because I have the power to name the price and you do not.”

So, I’m a thief and you are too. We see cheap goods lying around and pay far less than they are truly worth and don’t properly compensate those who make the goods. The price is not set consensually. Likewise, a bike thief sees a bike they can steal and takes it without paying and without consent. It sucks, I’ve had my bike stolen. But it’s hardly more criminal than participating in capitalism and hoarding wealth in other ways.

toofarinsideacar

pearl, i’m pretty sure dan’s point was not about who is “capable” of paying for such a thing but rather about who OUGHT to pay for such a thing – i.e. n-o o-n-e.

toofarinsideacar

well, by that logic we’re all squatting on indigenous land then.

if you are gonna apply the “rationale” of capitalism – that owning land is the only rightful way to possess land – than let’s do it fair and square and all of us settlers can head back where we came from off this stolen land (if you aren’t a settler, then nevermind)

everyone has to be somewhere, whether they have money for rent or not. looking at humanity throughout history, you can see that people have frequently made “homes” for themselves without paying rent. it is actually an OK thing – not a disaster or inherently crimal.

toofarinsideacar

how so?

toofarinsideacar

what is filth? to me (and to the earth, BTW!!), the gigantic, wasteful houses in the hills are even more filthy. and I mean that literally.

unsafe? really? I feel as safe in Berkeley as just about anywhere else I’ve ever been. If you’re referring to things like needles or unsanitary conditions – lets offer sanitary places to dispose of waste, rather than just asking for people to take their waste “somewhere else” (where someone else will still have to deal with it). (Everybody shits,by the way in case you missed that kids’ book. Someone cleans up after you and me too)

Can’t you just as easily move 100 miles away? Or simply move to walnut creek? What have you done to earn the right to be here more than them? Do you need this place more than them?

Lin Brand

Lower rates than what? They pay Berkeley to share the service. If I adopt a dog from BACS (which I did) I pay the same rate as a Berkeley citizen unless they get some discount. Both I and my neighbor have volunteered at BACS for years. You said services (plural)…do you have any other examples?

Anybody But Jesse

Albany contracts for various services with Berkeley at lower rates. An example is the animal shelter.

Lin Brand

I can’t speak for your experience, but Francisco worked though the local church. I donated a dining table and chairs, and Francisco picked them up along with other Albany community members. The people they assisted moved to housing in Oakland. And there are legal documents which show disbursement of all the funds, including months of rent prepaid…deny all you want but there is clear evidence to the contrary. Feel free to check at Albany City Hall. And, since you don’t know who he is, how would you know if you ever saw him at the landfill? You make no sense but seem to be taking a lot of credit here.

lspanker

The “working poor” don’t usually live in Berkeley. They live in Oakland, Richmond, Antioch, Pittsburgh, Stockton and admittedly other sucky places where they can at least find work and afford a place to live. The black woman with 2 kids taking the bus up San Pablo every morning to work at the big box store in Emeryville, the elderly Chinese man stocking vegetables in the market on 12th Street, and the Mexican 20-somethings working the kitchens in Fruitvale are “working poor”. The drug-addled bums who panhandle and strip bikes and squat on public and private land in Berkeley don’t even rise to that definition…

dan

What services???????

lspanker

et every time I mention cheap storage in areas with a lower cost of
living, I get shouted down for wanting to put them in concentration
camps.

That’s because you dared propose a solution, but the hard left isn’t INTERESTED in a solution. They actively campaign for a service-resistant homeless population because it provides them with cannon fodder for their long-hoped-for class war in this country…

dan

I think if I opened my bathroom 500 of the cleanest, nicest people I could find it would be a hazmat site within hours. One bathroom does not a solution make.

lspanker

What a crock! Patient advocates were were asking for more a human mental health system.

I have said this before, but Google “Lanterman-Petris-Short” and you might actually learn something: http://www.lacourt.org/division/mentalhealth/MH0017.aspx . Rightly or wrongly, de-institutionalization to address some genuine concerns about some of the more egregious abuses of the mentally ill was in vogue at the time, and Reagan was merely going with the flow in reducing funding for the same mental institutions that the collective wisdom at the time wanted to close down anyway.

dan

Maybe you should take your own advice.

lspanker

I am so sick of the idea that people’s loved ones, family, community
members are “problems” to be outsourced to “service-providers.”

They aren’t MY “family” or “loved ones”. We take care of our own. If they are yours, how about if YOU take care of them, instead of shoving a guilt trip on everyone else?

lspanker

Sounds like a couple people here are viable candidates for the Very Silly Party.

lspanker

We all steal to survive.

I don’t. There’s this thing called “work”…

lspanker

Is this your way of saying you don’t have an intelligent answer, dan? I’m sure the bike I had stolen from the Cal campus when I was a student didn’t just disappear into thin air, nor do laptops, cameras, smartphones, or other devices that get taken from their lawful owners.

dan

Yes, my terrible life choices, Choosing for my parents to die when I was seven..A huge mistake. Riding a motorcycle..my choice..But it was against the law for that power box to be covered with bushes..Ouch that hurt….To bad I was out of it for so log I couldn’t sue or I could be a rich bastard pissed off because other people have needs. No reason for anger though.. It’s perfectly acceptable to take money under the pretense of “If anything happens to you or your children Social Security will be there.” (Remember that commercial?) Then leave you out to dry.

Concernedresidentofearth

Set up a tent cabin village 100 miles from here with a communal bath and a mess hall. Would be very cheap. Would you accept that?

Concernedresidentofearth

Filth, theft, vermin, taking over public spaces, rendering public spaces unsafe. Need I go on? Can’t they just as easily camp in a rural area 100 miles from here? We will provide communal baths and a mess hall. Certainly better conditions than they have now, eh?

dan

The facts are the facts are the facts. But just because someone escapes their deeds in their lifetime doesn’t mean we should let then escape the verdict of History. Reagan is today. His policies are killing people as we type.

testit

There is no law, legal in the US, that forces people to leave a city. So, people can complain all they want, but we either house homeless people or live in a city that has a large and growing homeless population. At some point, the efforts we spend on handling the problems (like the efforts in this article) along with other impacts (like reduced quality of life for all the Berkeley residents that can afford the expensive housing) will reach a threshold that approaches the cost of providing housing and related services.
Sure, we could buy them all tickets to Hawaii, Alaska, or Sweden for less than housing (this is probably even true if this serves to attract more and more homeless people) but that’s not really a reasonable or effective approach.
People can be as righteous, angry, fed up, demoralized, disgusted, scared, etc. as they choose, but only thoughtful action will change the situation. Or, we can just continue to effectively do nothing (that’s my best guess, but not my suggestion).
I see a common thread in California attitudes about responsibility and greed, we voted for Prop 13 and continue to keep it in place, to the detriment of schools and our children (I send my kids to private schools despite a string preference for the notion of public education), rather than part with our incredible wealth, similarly, we will not willingly part with any of that wealth to ensure a minimum standard of life for those less fortunate. We focus on the negative social aspects of those homeless people rather than on how our society can help.

testit

So, what’s your plan for the class of people you defined?

testit

Sorry, but I don’t agree that the most cost effective solution is what should be implemented. I think the criteria for the solution should be meeting the basic human needs (and rights) of the people. I’m not saying that cost is irrelevant, just that it should not be the guiding principle.

Our society should provide mental health and other medical services to those in need (if they can pay for it, then they should, to the extent that they can), safe housing, healthy food, a place to store a reasonable amount of possessions. Qualified people should be hired to work in the housing to ensure safety, maintenance, and a minimum quality of life. The goal should be to get as many people to become fully, or at least more, able to live independent lives. For those that can’t, in our wealthy society, the minimum standard should be higher than living without running water and toilets under a freeway bridge.

testit

So, please let the homeless know the path to having a place to live. Where can they go to bathe, wash and iron their clothes (and get clothes they could actually wear to a job interview), get a haircut and shave, use the internet to look for a job, and, finally, get the skills to interview and perform well enough to keep a job should they actually manage to get one.

There’s a point, that when reached as so many of these people have, from which it is virtually impossible to return.

From another perspective, although you don’t appear likely to be sympathetic to the notion, drug addition is probably best viewed as a disease that deserves treatment. Such treatment will be needed, for many, to start the process of making some effort to change their lives, rather than trying to change their lives first.

Agree or not, your comments are far short of a workable plan to even result on one less homeless person.

Yes, most people don’t expect to do nothing and have a place to live, but I am arguing that those that do “nothing”, as you put it, need significant assistance to be in the other category. And for those people for whom no amount of assistance will prove beneficial, many of whom can be identified quickly upon assessment, they should be treated humanely without further delay. For those that could benefit from assistance, they should also have help immediately, including housing, while they begin to get the help they so desperately need.

testit

So, you expect Mexico to pay for Trump’s wall?

Pietro Gambadilegno

We should let them have a place to live if they are making some effort to change their lives for the better. We should not let them have a place to live if they want to spend their lives as addicts or to spend their lives sitting on the sidewalk and doing nothing.

Most people work in order to be able to have a place to live. They don’t expect to do nothing and to get a place to live just because they are people.

Pietro Gambadilegno

Many of the people there are addicts who want to keep being addicts. No matter how attractive the services are, most addicts will want to stay addicted rather than making the effort break the habit. If you want to be an enabler who lets them sit there and remain addicts, then you want to help to kill them.

When people move their possessions onto a Berkeley sidewalk and set up permanent camp there, we are making it too easy for them to be homeless. If we made them move occasionally, they have some incentive to get services.

Their homelessness causes more harm to them than it does to me. If you want to help them, why do you back policies that let them kill themselves?

But it also does hurt me. When my son was a little kid, I couldn’t take him to the local park because it was filled with drunk homeless people. Today, city staff tells neighborhood people that, if they are doing cleanup in their local parks, they have to rake the undergrowth thoroughly before they touch it, to find needles there. But little children playing in the park don’t know that rule: they dig in the undergrowth and they could find needles.

toofarinsideacar

your point?

am I incorrect? please explain if so.

toofarinsideacar

“too easy to live on the street”. . . are you speaking from experience? please share if so because it doesn’t appear to me that most ppl on the street are living the easy life.

Also, I repeat, what harm does it cause to you for people to live on the street? what would be so bad about it being “easy”? (this is a hypothetical question because actually it’s not easy)

Pietro Gambadilegno

if we want people to seek help, we need to make the “help” more appealing than the alternative.

And there are two ways to do that: make it easier to get help or make it harder to live on the street. Many people refuse help because we make it too easy to live on the street – keeping them homeless addicts for life.

Pearl Clutcher

looks like we’ve established the fringe.

Pearl Clutcher

the Homeless don’t pay for anything. I understand the joke you want to make, but the analogy is a fail.

Pearl Clutcher

Albany gets plenty of services from Berkeley at a fraction of what Berkeley residents pay. Albany has nothing to whine about.

Concernedresidentofearth

Agreed. Let’s let them be somewhere else for, say, 5 years. Give us a break. Can you agree to that little step?

toofarinsideacar

who’s job is this though? ALL OF OURS. I am so sick of the idea that people’s loved ones, family, community members are “problems” to be outsourced to “service-providers.”

We as a society have to get our priorities in order and realize that it takes all of us – or at least *a lot more of us* – to support people in getting through trauma and addiction. It takes all of us to respect and value people who’s minds work differently, who are disabled and/or neurodivergent.

The underfunded service providers can’t do it alone, people’s family members can’t do it alone. (None of us can do anything alone by the way). We gotta support eachother and if we can’t do that – because yeah we’re busy working and taking care of our immediate families – I think we have to accept that when we walk down the street we’re gonna have people in pain, people who’ve been hurt, people who are angry at a world that continually disregards and outright rejects them.

None of us are so wonderful that we’ve earned the right to not have to see people’s pain.

toofarinsideacar

And yet manufactured goods are just about all stolen goods made with stolen (i.e. far far far underpaid) labor.

We all steal to survive. Some of us, in fact, stole this very land we live on.

Doesn’t make stealing ok, or good, but sometimes it is an act of survival.

I’m all for holding people accountable for theft but if we’re gonna do that let’s hold ourselves accountable too.

In the meantime, how about we left people have a place to live because they are, by the way, people.

toofarinsideacar

wow. what bullshit and tragedy both at once. what spin to give people a hard time for peeing in bottles when what that probably means is that they are trying to be *respectful* by *not* peeing on the ground.

tell me, what harm did these folks cause? people have to BE somewhere. a lot of us, for example, take up a TON space in big houses, full of wasteful crap, made of toxic equipment, build by underpaid working class and immigrant people. People take up space. we all do. We destroy the land in order to live. We all do. Comparatively, high-density camping by the side of a freeway in tents causes pretty minimal harm. Personally I hope we as a city/region can do better than shuffling people out of sight, but if we are going to shuffle people off of Telegraph and Shattuck then we should at LEAST let them be by the freeway for god’s sake. It’s not like they are in your backyard or your front stoop or even at the threshhold of the store you’re trying to shop at.

BTW, people should not be obligated to accept forced help, that should not be a punishable crime. yep, people are addicted to drugs. maybe there is a reason they don’t want the “services” on offer, though. if we want people to seek help, we need to make the “help” more appealing than the alternative. Yes, we. that is what “community” is for, that is what LIFE is for.

Lin Brand

Have to disagree with you. 17 people accepted assistance with housing and Albany residents provided furnishings and helped them set up, delivered appliances and furniture. Francisco Papalia worked hard coordinating the effort. The rest refused. And it is NOT an eviction when you don’t own or pay rent for the land. It is squatting. The majority of the people on the Bulb were NOT from Albany, they were from Berkeley, sent there by Berkeley law enforcement. And it was no utopia – there was crime, drug abuse, domestic abuse, and dog attacks. Maybe the non-profits Albany contracted with had issues – but they were reasonable options at the time.

WindoWest

Dan, We’re sorry to hear of your suffering and agree that as a society we need to care for each other in better ways. Blaming Reagan is so yesterday, let’s move on.

Anybody But Jesse

Then move the thieves and assailants to actual jail. This isn’t hard.

Concernedresidentofearth

I used the other half. I.e. I needed the left crank arm. I put out the right size as a freebie. The 70 bikes were not built from castoffs. Stop denying the obvious.

paxallen1067

Is it electrified?..

Pietro Gambadilegno

I don’t own a car. All my adult life, I have bicycled as my main form of transportation.

That is one reason that I worry about bike thieves. If I went to get my locked-up bike and found that someone had stolen the wheels, I would be stuck. Judging from the bikes without wheels locked to racks, there are more bike thieves around now that ever.

Maybe you should stick to the issues rather than making false personal attacks.

Pietro Gambadilegno

Not true. The most popular writer on the subject at the time was Michel Foucault, who said in _Madness and Civilization_ that psychiatric hospitals were just an authoritarian method of cleaning up cities by getting people off the streets if they behaved differently from the majority.

Cammy

Also people come to California from all over the country because of the year round warm climate, and the fact that they’re able to live on the streets without the city or police getting involved. I’ve lived abroad and there are some homeless but not to the extent that I’ve seen here.

dan

Maybe you should get out of your car.

dan

What is usable about a 1/2 a crank set? A seat post? (I’d have to see the stem.) This is Berkeley. Land of disposable incomes. The pickings are much better than that.

dan

I have brought dozens of put out bikes to the Tinkerer’s Workshop at Aquatic Park to be recycled. (I have about 4 or so here) Tom Barnett has been recycling bikes for years, has an income and was recently housed until the Berkeley Food Project dropped the ball. Despite his disability Tom does his best to live a self sufficient life.

dan

Spoken like a true intullecshunel.

dan

Funny thing. I happened to be in in a accident in 1984. After a year in UCSD Medical Center (God Bless them) I was transferred to what was supposed to be a rehab but was a county catch all where on my first night amid the worst smells imaginable the boiled alive a mentally ill woman in a bathtub. I fled that place on a pair of crutches with my elbow and hip packed with gauze. I was homeless for 10 years with Ronald Reagans new Social Security guidelines denying me with letters. YOUR CONDITION WILL NOT LAST LONGER THAN A YEAR. But I never did grow a new leg or get use of that arm. It cost much more to deal with my opportunistic infections from lack of medical care than it would of cost to give me the disability payments that my dead parents and I paid for. Since I had no medical care it was all done in the emergency room.
It’s a huge waste and I often wonder what I could of accomplished in those 10 hellish years.

Concernedresidentofearth

Robbin, please stop defending the indefensible. It makes zero sense. If we can get the perhaps 10% of community members that continue to defend the indefensible, which likely overlaps with those who want to use the homeless as a cudgel against our economic system (thus holding the homeless hostage), then perhaps the homeless could be housed. The housing will be outside the area to save money, but a roof is roof, if you have nothing and no income. I realize that many of the underbridge dwellers like living in Berkeley where panhandling, found objects, and theft make a decent living, but we are DONE!!! They can earn it like anyone else.

Concernedresidentofearth

If my children can’t afford to live here, they will go to live somewhere they can afford to do so. What is so special about these snowflakes that the community needs to support their lack of self-preservation instinct in one of the most expensive places in the country? Fine, someone doesn’t have a self preservation instinct and can’t afford to live here, but living under a bridge like a troll is not acceptable. They can go to the city run campground outside the area (we obviously need to set this up).

Pietro Gambadilegno

Yes, Reagan signed the law and wanted to slash government services, including needed psychiatric services. But before Reagan acted, there were widespread calls from the left to let people out of mental hospitals. The most famous examples are:
RD Laing: The Divided Self
Michel Foucault: Madness and Civilization
Ken Kesey: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

It was a bipartisan policy – not just Reagan.

Pietro Gambadilegno

Did you read the article?

Hynes said homeless outreach and mental health workers had often been
rebuffed by homeless individuals in the area. He described the
campers as “openly antagonistic to anything having to do with help.”

southberkeleyres

If we have time to comment, I hope we can also take time to call and report stolen carts, and help our. Our police are understaffed; part of Berkeley’s culture, giving a good amount to some nonprofits that are not transparent and can not give concrete evidence of attaining said goals.

Pietro Gambadilegno

I don’t have 70 bicycles in my house, like Thomas Barnett. How is it that he could afford to buy 70 bicycles?

dan

WHAT SERVICES? There are no services. There is a jail called a homeless shelter where you can go to get assaulted, stolen from, But alas, it’s full, full to the brim of the mostly mentally ill over flow of the broken mental health system. So I would like to know what “services” were offered.

dan

Hey Berkeley lets tackle this homeless problem. let’s build a wall. And you know who’s going to pay for the wall? (the crowd yells dully) The Homeless!

dan

I wonder how much stuff you have at your house? When was it checked for stolen items? As quiet as it’s kept, the majority of homeless people are disabled, have money, just not enough to pay some jerks mortgage and vacations, car payments etc.

brycenesbittt

Did the police even scan for stolen goods? Could Berkeleyside follow up and determine if any of the “multiple laptops” were stolen goods? Any used bike operation will have a mix of stolen parts: but was this one an attempt at business with customers, or just hoarding of parts?

Ninthstreet

Thank you for your interest in this issue. I was responding to the comment of “Poppycock” to the statement that “a lot of these people are from here.” Since I’ve spoken to several of them I thought you might like to know that they ARE local.

My children attended BHS. It makes them -and us- feel connected to this town, and the Bay Area.

We can’t send these “away.” Whatever solutions we work for, we have to admit that the people who live on the street are our children, our neighbors, and our neighbors’ children.

disqus_S1ql48Vi9i

70 bikes? Multiple laptops?

Anybody But Jesse

They are offered services. They refuse them. This is in the article.

emraguso

I was there for quite a while and spoke with a number of people (some of whom I met previously during other reporting that Frances already pointed to). I quoted them at length today about their circumstances and their thoughts. Obviously there’s more to say but I think we included quite a bit from their perspective, the impacts on them and what they’d like to happen in the future, as well as the city’s.

Concernedresidentofearth

Well, if a lot of theft is caused by the indigent, and they generate a lot of police calls, then the police, by making their existence here untenable, will have obliquely solved the problem you mention. By chasing the indigent away, their will have less calls about the indigent to which to respond, and less theft cases to deal with.

Janet Winter

I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one. When Ronald Reagan was governor, my father was an inpatient in the California Mental Health system, and with many of his co-patients, was released into the streets, because of what was claimed was a “cost-cutting measure” of the California state government. For most of what remained of his life (he died at age 55), he did the best he could on his own, self-medicating with quantities of cheap liquor.

If you would like to learn more of what Reagan’s part in this was, you might check out the discussion on Snopes.com, I quote part of it here below, because it cites the specific law that was responsible for this miscarriage of justice.

“The law that Reagan signed was the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS), passed by the legislature & signed into law in 1967 by Governor Ronald Reagan. The idea was to “stem entry into the state hospital by encouraging the community system to accept more patients, hopefully improving quality of care while allowing state expense to be alleviated by the newly available federal funds.” It also was designed to protect the rights of mental patients. It was considered a landmark of its time–a change in the attitude toward mental illness and its treatment.

The law restricted involuntary commitment, among other things. It allows people to refuse treatment for mental illness, unless they are clearly a danger to someone else or themselves. It facilitated release of many patients—supposedly to go to community mental health treatment programs.

Reagan’s role, besides signing the bill, was using it as a reason to cut his budget. What Reagan did was, at the same time the bill was passed, to reduce the budget for state mental hospitals. His budget bill “abolished 1700 hospital staff positions and closed several of the state-operated aftercare facilities. Reagan promised to eliminate even more hospitals if the patient population continued to decline. Year-end population counts for the state hospitals had been declining by approximately 2000 people per year since 1960.”

This law presumed that the people released from hospitals or not committed at all would be funneled in community treatment as provided by the Short Doyle Act of 1957. It was “was designed to organize and finance community mental health services for persons with mental illness through locally administered and locally controlled community health programs.”

It also presumed that the mentally ill would voluntarily accept treatment if it were made available to them on a community basis. However, because of the restrictions on involuntary commitment, seriously mentally ill people who would not consent to treatment “who clearly needed treatment but did not fit the new criteria or who recycled through short term stays — became a community dilemma. For them, there was nowhere to go.” Once released, they would fail to take meds or get counseling and went right back to being seriously ill.

Also, unfortunately, at the time LPS was implemented, funding for community systems either declined or was not beefed up. Many counties did not have adequate community mental health services in place and were unable to fund them. Federal funds for community mental health programs, which LPS assumed would pick up the slack, began drying up in the early 1980s, due to budget cutbacks in general. The Feds shifted funding responsibility to the states.”

You would be surprised at the responses I get to my suggestion to set up tent cabin encampments outside the area for the indigent, which would surely be better than camping under an overpass. People think these are like sending the indigent to concentration camps. To them it is better that the indigent continue to wait for…something…under the overpass. A remotely plausible something is never described that they are waiting for.

Concernedresidentofearth

Robbin, our family has a big stable of bikes due to the number of people and the fact that we have been cyclists for decades. Here is the sum total of bike parts I’ve placed at the curb (they all came back) over the 25 years I’ve lived here:
2 seat posts
1/2 crankset
1 stem
None were taken after several days. I think you are simply wrong.

Concernedresidentofearth

Are you arguing that because of this they should be able to take over public space or demand free housing in the place they grew up? Do make that argument, please. I can’t see it.

Concernedresidentofearth

The homeless aren’t going to housed in Berkeley, even those “from” here. There are cheaper places to store the indigent – and it is storage, let’s be honest. Yet every time I mention cheap storage in areas with a lower cost of living, I get shouted down for wanting to put them in concentration camps. Would you agree that as a courtesy to those paying for the indigent that the most cost effective solution be implemented?

Concernedresidentofearth

Reagan did not gut the system – old wives tale. Stop spreading it. He happened to be governor at the time that psychiatrists won the battle to end mental hospitals and return mentally ill people to the community for community care, which was ineffective. Maybe in another 50 years we’ll get mental hospitals up and running again. For the mentally ill wandering the streets, I can’t imagine those places would be worse.

loujudson

Thanks to Ronnie Reagan for starting it!

Janet Winter

Until cities, counties and states come up with viable policies to deal with the homeless and mentally ill (thank you, Ronald Reagan, for gutting the system that was in place until you became governor), the problem will continue. It needs to be laid at the feet of our elected officials to come up with these policies, and convince the voters that it’s worth paying for their implementation, to begin improving the situation. Coming up with the answers will require courage, dedication and thoughtfulness on the parts of our elected officials and the voters, working as a team.

Duda Day

SCREW (noun): a metal object which you place on your forehead and hit with a hammer.

Duda Day

I’m all for building housing and supporting expanded city care services but with the condition that the homeless are mandated to participate in mental health oversight. If they do not agree to follow rules and regulations of accepted standards of behavior, they will have to suffer the consequences like anyone else.

almazul

I had to check the date on this article….it’s such a repeat of earlier actions. How absurd! Here we are in the richest country in the world and we can’t even house poor people. Obscene! No, we have to spent trillions on war and stupid stuff….Note to other commenters: don’t blame the homeless unless you are willing to live in their shoes.

Ninthstreet

Of the people I’ve spoken to, the majority grew up in the Bay Area, snd several attended Berkeley High.

Pearl Clutcher

I’d be happy with citations and then arrests for possession of stolen property. They can impound the shopping cart.

Pietro Gambadilegno

It is more like: “these people don’t want help, so they need to be pressured into getting help.”

Your approach would leave them sitting under the freeway ramp for the rest of their lives, doing drugs and living in filth. You would be proud about how humane you are, but you would be causing life-long homelessness and suffering.

It is better for them if they are forced to move, if they are made just uncomfortable enough sitting on the street that they become willing to accept help needed to get off the street.

WindoWest

Darryl is on vacation.

Pietro Gambadilegno

I myself love to find things on the streets. During several decades in Berkeley, I have found one discarded bike, which I fixed up and used. You are absolutely out of touch with reality if you think someone found 70 bikes that people discarded.

Have you seen all the bikes parked on bike racks with wheels missing? Have you seen just wheels locked to bike racks with the rest of the bike missing? Are you not smart enough to think that there is some bike theft involved there?

southberkeleyres

Sorry, but the police have more important things than to return shopping carts. Could you volunteer to call stores in your neighborhood when you see carts, please? I call them into the store who is missing the valuable property giving them the address. I also tell them I am tired of having items stolen out of my yard with the help of a shopping cart.

southberkeleyres

I appreciate the effort, but pretty sure these homeless, (some by choice) can cut through the fence since they so often cut through bike locks. Just passed two bike bodies without wheels in front of the Seabreeze market. Look at the bike wheels and parts near Mr Jupiter of the Universe. What a disgusting gross mess. Others might have more respect for the homeless who are not mentally ill if they could show respect for others by cleaning up after themselves.

testit

I agree with your sentiment.

From a pragmatic perspective, Berkeley (who is not alone) has no solution to this problem. These actions at this location amount to kicking the the can down the road.

As to Concernedresidentofearth’s statement about being a free country, I beg to differ. In fact the 3rd sentence captures it perfectly, free, as long as you camp where you’re allowed (thus, not free). I’m not arguing that anyone should be allowed to camp anywhere, just point out that we are very from from being a free country.

Back to the pragmatic, the short term question is, where should these people go? If Berkeley does not have a preferred answer to this question, then it’s certain that they won’t go somewhere that Berkeley wants them to go. Clearly, they will not be getting housing anytime soon, so they will still be outside.

So, until there is a long term, viable plan to deal with homelessness, Berkeley should at least have a place for homeless people to camp, provide some basic services for hygienic and humanitarian purposes (e.g. bathrooms, showers, running water, place to wash clothes, store belongings), with no unnecessary rules like hours when they can come and go. Perhaps Berkeley can hire someone to operate such places and keep them sanitary.
these are things that should be done by tomorrow. If someone has a better idea of what to do tomorrow, please suggest it.

Robbin Noir

Hey, I see free bikes & bike parts left out all the time (just like dressers, old futons, etc.) Screw you for assuming his bikes parts are stolen. Homeless people are often the most creative, tough, hardworking people, but unfortunately live in a country that rewards d-bags over decency. This world rewards sociopaths & con men/women (look what are choices are for president and other political offices) but regards the working poor as threats. Housing is so unaffordable here. What kind of dummy can’t figure out that a creative working person displaced from regular housing is certainly going to try and keep whatever parts & gear they have to continue to eke out some living.
Some of the comments here are inhumane & outrageous. [This comment has been moderated – Eds]

bfg

Allowing people to wallowing in trash and try to survive with nothing is not humane. We provide service and housing access for the homeless. There needs to be more funding for the Hub and other services. Those who prefer not to access services don’t get to pitch a tent wherever they choose.

Pearl Clutcher

He’s leading the search for Darryl Moore, AWOL during the incident with the machine gun toting nut job strolling through his district.

Pearl Clutcher

Just like they purchased all of those shopping carts…

Pearl Clutcher

> “I think they don’t want us in this town,” he said.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

> “A lot of these people are from here

Poppycock

> and they’re not going anywhere.”

Keep up the pressure CoB!

vbm

I appreciate this reporting. Thank you Berkeleyside and E. Raguso.

D Kory

Actually, I just looked at comments for the other articles. It seems Berkeley citizens who comment here are more concerned with the cleanliness under a freeway on ramp than they are about people. It saddens me.

Lin Brand

Curious why they would compact them – chances are they had owners who might have claimed them given the opportunity (a web page of pictures would have been sufficient).

D Kory

This is helpful, thank you. The other articles offer much more information and context and I appreciate the work you’ve done . I think I am more shocked by people’s response to the article than the article itself, but I did feel after reading it that the underlying theme was “these people don’t want help so they deserve to be displaced and disrespected,” which might account for the many dehumanizing comments here.

Concernedresidentofearth

It’s a free country. They can go anywhere they want. They can camp anywhere they are allowed to. This is not one of those spots. There is probably another place to camp like this within 2 miles. The gentleman with $5000 worth of bicycles should sell them and rent lodging.

D Kory did you read the entire article? Berkeleyside talked to a number of people displaced by this action. Also, we devoted all of June 29 to writing about the homeless in Berkeley. I invite you to read our many articles on the topic. http://www.berkeleyside.com/tag/berkeley-homeless-project/

Mrdrew3782

“He said it seemed like the city is trying to push out the homeless with its repeat operations on Gilman.” This man is a master of deduction.

LStoll

What a joke. They moved across the street, and then right back after the cleaners left. Now it’s back to aggressive panhandling and people offering you drugs as you get on the I-80

Pietro Gambadilegno

He said he lost about $5,000 worth of property, including about 70 bikes and bike frames

I am sure he bought all those bikes and bike frames. They were legitimately his property. How could anyone steal them from him.

Completely_Serious

Citations! A fence! Signs! No arrests! Well, problem solved.

And I love the picture of Hynes — the very model of a modern city manager employee — sunglasses, Starbucks and cell phone poised — he’s getting sh!t done, don’t ya know.

Concernedresidentofearth

The gentleman that lost 70 bikes – now you know how the people you stole them from feel. Loser. Please go away. Far away.